


When it Comes to Luck (You Make Your Own)

by Ralkana



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Luck and Superstition, M/M, Post Avengers (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 13:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralkana/pseuds/Ralkana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint cupped the tiny clover in his palm, staring down at the four perfect leaves. "Been looking for one of these pretty much my whole life," he murmured.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When it Comes to Luck (You Make Your Own)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mzpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mzpineapple/gifts).



> Disclaimer ~ Marvel's toys, not mine. I'm just playing with them.
> 
> HUGE thanks to AlyKat for the title -- I _hate_ titles!
> 
> For Mzpineapple, who gave me the prompt (which is at the bottom of the fic) on tumblr for St. Patrick's Day. It didn't quite fit the holiday, but it did inspire me!
> 
> Warning for a little bit of adult language.

 

"Sir, wait! Don't move."

At Clint's sudden command, Coulson froze, off-balance, left foot lifted.

"You can put your foot back where it was," Clint added as he dodged around the other man and crouched to pluck something out of the dense foliage at his feet. He barely restrained his cry of triumph as he held it aloft for Coulson to see.

"A four-leaf clover?" Coulson asked, and only those who knew him very well, like Clint, would be able to hear the amused disbelief in it.

Clint cupped the tiny clover in his palm, staring down at the four perfect leaves. "Been looking for one of these pretty much my whole life," he murmured.

Movement and a flash of white at his side had him looking up to see Coulson offering him a handkerchief, and it would never stop being funny that Coulson carried actual handkerchiefs in those perfect suits of his.

Taking it, Clint carefully wrapped the clover in it and tucked it into one of the pockets of his uniform.

"I can't believe you saw that from eye level at six feet away on a cloudy day," Coulson said, shaking his head a little, and Clint scowled at him, unimpressed.

"Yes, yes, Hawkeye, I know. I'm sorry for impugning your abilities. You'd think I'd've stopped being amazed by what you can see by now, but forgive me, some of us are mere mortals."

Clint grinned. "Not according to the baby agents, boss. You're like God and the boogeyman combined for them."

Coulson eyed him blandly, which only caused Clint's grin to widen, because he could see the faint, proud sparkle in those clear blue eyes.

"May we proceed, Agent Barton?"

"After you, sir."

Coulson actually rolled his eyes, which Clint always counted as a victory, and began walking again.

They walked in silence for a few moments, both carefully tracking their surroundings as they got closer to where they'd hidden the car. This part of the mission was just simple recon, and they weren't expecting any trouble, but lack of awareness was what got people killed.

Clint continued scanning as he walked, but his thoughts drifted a little.

He'd had a lot of time to think after everything that had happened the previous year. Some of his thoughts had been shaped and directed by the things discussed in his mandatory psych sessions, but a lot of his thinking had come while lying in the dark in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling above his bed.

He'd realized that if he'd died under Loki's control, or during the battle, there wasn't a lot that anyone could say they knew about him, and he'd been with SHIELD for more than a decade.

_Oh, Clint Barton. He loved arrows. And anything purple. And he was a smartass._

That was pretty much it, and that wasn't really the legacy he wanted to leave behind. So he was consciously making an effort to share more of himself. Not with just anybody, of course, but with the people he trusted. 

So he'd shared some of the better circus stories with his team, grinning through Bruce's wry comments and Thor's booming laughter. He'd spent lunches in the mess and dinners at little out of the way diners with the small cadre of senior agents who'd never changed the way they looked at him, even after everything, spinning out yarns of things that happened to him while he was young and stupid and out on his own. Woo's perpetually wide eyes and Sitwell's bland humor -- he liked to pretend he was Coulson when the man wasn't around, there was some serious hero worship there, not that Clint could blame him -- were always entertaining. He'd made Jasper snort beer once, and choke on his sweet potato fries, and those were memories he liked to take out and look at on the increasingly rare occasions he woke up screaming, icy blue at the edges of his vision.

With Coulson and Nat, he was trying to give more -- they'd given him so much, the least he could do was share a few stories. They got the few good pieces of his childhood there were. The majority was awful, and those memories he would take to his grave. Nobody needed them, not even him.

He cleared his throat softly, and he _felt_ Coulson focus in on him, even if he never stopped scanning their surroundings.

"When I was little, Barney and me and my parents, we'd go to my grandma's sometimes. She had this huge backyard, and there were these big patches of clover all over the place. She used to send us out there, to try and find some luck, she'd always say, but I think it was more to get us out of the way, you know?"

There was a sound off to their right and they both tensed in that direction and then watched as the deer they'd disturbed bounded off into the shadows of the woods on that side.

"Anyway," Clint continued, "I was a tiny little shit, maybe three or four. She told us that if we ever found one, we could wish for whatever we wanted, and it would come true. Barney found a couple, but he'd never tell me what he wished for. The neighborhood kids found a few -- they were all closer to Barney's age, bigger 'n me."

After a moment, he shrugged. "I never found one."

He left out the time he'd found one only to be pushed into the dirt by one of the Harriman boys who'd lived next door. Even then, he'd known crying wouldn't do him any good, so he'd just sat with his ass in the wet clover while Jimmy Harriman crowed about _his_ lucky clover.

"I guess it's stupid to still be looking for one," he said as they finally approached the car. "It's not like I believe a plant with an extra leaf is going to grant me a wish."

"I don't think it's stupid," Coulson said thoughtfully as he popped the trunk so they could stow their gear. The corners of his mouth turned up in a wry little smile. "Magic's not as impossible to believe in as it used to be."

Clint glared at him across the car. Their experiences with magic were uniformly awful, and not something he ever wanted to repeat. Coulson just shrugged as he opened the car door.

"So what are you going to wish for on your lucky day?" he asked once they were both in the car.

Clint glanced out the window and took a breath before answering, to make sure that he wouldn't blurt out anything stupid.

"Don't know," he said after a minute. "I'll have to think about it. Wouldn't want to waste it."

He glanced back at Coulson, who caught his gaze with a hint of the smile he loved so much. 

"Good idea."

 

**~ ~ ~ ~ ~**

 

"First shower?" Clint asked as he dumped the bags of food on the safe house's dining table, and Coulson nodded.

With one last curious look at the little bag Coulson held -- he'd ducked into the stationery store next to the grocery store while Clint had stocked up on supplies -- Clint headed for the bathroom.

"I'll order pizza," Coulson called as he began unpacking the groceries. "Everything but mushrooms," he added patiently before Clint could even open his mouth, and Clint grinned to himself at Coulson's traditional grumble of "It's not real pizza anyway."

He carefully pulled the handkerchief holding his clover out of the pocket of his fieldsuit, setting it on the bedside table before peeling out of his clothes and padding naked into the bathroom that adjoined the two bedrooms.

After a quick clean-up, he ambled back out of the bathroom, towel around his waist, scrubbing at his hair.

Glancing at the bedside table, he stopped short. The handkerchief was gone.

"Coulson?" he called. "Coulson, did you -- "

He broke off. What was he going to ask? _Did you steal my lucky clover just like Jimmy Harriman?_ That was insane.

But then where was it?

Just before Clint moved to look behind the nightstand, Coulson called, "Yes, I -- it's out here."

Coulson sounded hesitant, and that was... wrong. All wrong.

Clint had visions of an intruder holding a gun at Coulson's head or a knife at his throat, and that was stupid, because Coulson would've laid them out with the can of Pringles.

Nevertheless, he dressed fast, his t-shirt and sweats clinging to his still damp skin, and grabbed his sidearm before stepping into the living room.

Coulson was sitting at the table alone, and he looked... guilty. The handkerchief lay unfolded and open in front of him.

Clint set his sidearm on the hall table and took a deep breath. Whatever had happened, it wasn't important. It was just a stupid plant, after all. Nothing to get upset about.

"What happened?" he asked, stupidly pleased that his voice stayed even.

"What?" Coulson blinked. "Nothing happened, I just thought you might like a more permanent memento. It wasn't until I'd finished that it occurred to me that I should've asked first. I'm sorry, I shouldn’t have presumed."

Thoroughly confused, Clint moved closer to the table.

There was a little piece of white cardstock sitting in front of Coulson, about the size of a business card, and it had been laminated. His clover lay flat beneath the clear adhesive, the date curving over it in Coulson's neat handwriting. The words _Your lucky day_ curved underneath it.

It was... fantastic. So much better than anything Clint would've thought of -- he probably would've just kept it in his pocket like an idiot until it shriveled up or disappeared. He stared at it, reaching out with his fingertip to stroke the printed words.

"I'm sorry," Coulson repeated quietly, and that jolted Clint out of his stupor.

"What? No, this is... this is _great_ , Coulson. Thank you."

Relief flashed in Coulson's eyes, lightning fast and gone. "Good. I was going to put _Clint Barton's lucky day_ , but I figured..."

"The less it's out there, the better," Clint finished, and Coulson nodded.

Clint was glad. Sometimes his job required different -- or no -- identification, and he already knew he was going to carry it with him until his dying day.

He probably would've anyway, but Coulson had made it. Coulson had made it _for him_.

Coulson pushed back from the table. "I'm going to go take a shower," he murmured, and Clint just nodded.

He stared at the little card the whole time Coulson was gone.

 

**~ ~ ~ ~ ~**

 

Clint took a bite of his pizza and a sip of soda, wishing idly for a beer. Not just because beer went better with pizza, but because he needed something stronger than soda to deal with being alone with Coulson when he looked like this, casual and comfortable in sweats and a SHIELD hoodie, his hair damp and a little mussed as he frowned at his pizza.

Since his team had formed up, he'd gotten out of the practice of sharing space with only Coulson while hiding his ever present desire to just jump the man. It would be easier tomorrow, when Tasha joined them, but for now, he struggled to focus on his dinner instead of staring.

"So have you decided what you're wishing for on your lucky day?" Coulson asked suddenly, and Clint glanced up.

He glanced right back down because there was a tiny spot of pizza sauce at the corner of Coulson's mouth and it was all Clint could do not to crawl over there and lick it off.

What Coulson had asked finally registered, and he shrugged.

"A never-empty quiver," he said with an easy grin. It didn't matter, it wasn't like the clover had any real power, and anyway, he was pretty sure he'd used up his entire lifetime allotment of luck, wishes, and prayers when Fury had interrupted their post-battle shawarma to notify them that Agent Coulson was not as dead as he'd previously seemed.

"That would certainly make Ordnance happy," Coulson said with a smile. The smile faded, and his face grew serious as he leaned forward to set his empty plate on the coffee table. "Would you like to know what I'd wish for?"

Clint blinked in surprise. Coulson had to have noticed Clint's efforts to share more of himself, but they'd never spoken of it, and until now, Coulson had been as private and inscrutable as ever.

"Of course," he said hastily, realizing the silence was starting to stretch out and that Coulson had glanced away.

"I'd wish..." Coulson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes on his loosely linked hands. "I'd wish for someone to come home to at night."

And Clint mentally swore a blue streak and thought _wait, I changed my mind_ , and _do I have to hear this?_

"Someone who understands when I have to be gone for a few days or weeks or even months and gets that sometimes I can't check in every night," Coulson added, and Clint nodded in agreement even as a part of him was internally jumping around and shouting, _Me! I understand, me, look at me!_

Everyone in SHIELD knew how difficult it was to maintain any kind of relationship with civilians -- romantic, family, or otherwise. Clint was pretty sure that Coulson's frequent absences and evasions of her inquiries were a big part of the reason the cellist he'd been dating had gone back to Portland.

"Someone with a wicked sense of humor who just can't keep it to himself sometimes," Coulson said, and Clint glanced up sharply.

 _ **Him** self_ was the first thing that registered, and then he froze, because that was... Coulson was describing -- something was _happening_ here, this wasn't just idle conversation over dinner.

"Someone who challenges me, keeps me on my toes -- sometimes annoys me and frustrates the hell out of me -- but follows the orders that need to be followed and always gets the job done."

Coulson was gazing at him, and there was more intense determination in his eyes than Clint had seen throughout all of the long and painful physical therapy Coulson had powered through to get back into the field, more even than he'd seen in the security cam footage of Coulson singlehandedly facing down a _god_.

"Someone with incredible vision, who can look past the suit and the tie everyone else sees and find _me_ underneath."

Clint could only stare, because Coulson -- _no, screw it,_ he thought, and he did what he never, ever allowed himself to do, even in his head. _Phil,_ he thought. Phil was describing his biggest wish, his deepest desire, and he was describing _Clint_.

Phil smiled, a full, open, warm smile, the one Clint had only ever seen a handful of times when Coulson was happy, relaxing with his friends at the close of a successful mission, and Clint's breath caught in his throat at the sight.

"And if that someone happens to be gorgeous, with beautiful eyes, incredible arms, and a perfect ass, well... that would be okay too, I guess."

Phil wanted him. Phil wanted him as much as he wanted Phil. Clint sat, staring at Phil, frozen in amazed disbelief.

Phil looked away first, staring down at his hands again as he murmured, "Know where I could find someone like that?"

There was a thread of uncertainty in the quiet words, and no, that -- he had to know, Phil _had_ to know that Clint --

He tossed his plate aside and hurdled the coffee table, not stopping until he was in Phil's chair, straddling his lap.

The kiss was hot and desperate, wet and rough and needy, and when Phil moaned into it, Clint's hands tightened, one on Phil's shoulder, the other in his hair to hold him steady, hold him still. Phil's hands were digging into his hips, and they rocked together, learning each other, not letting go of each other until they had no choice.

When they broke apart, both were breathing hard, flushed with need, and Clint rested his forehead against Phil's, completely unable to stop the giddy grin he could feel on his face, the astounded laughter bubbling up inside of him. 

"I think I might know someone who'll fit the bill," he said.

"Must be my lucky day," Phil said evenly, and kissed him again.

**END**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Mzpineapple prompted: omg can we maybe get something with them and Clint finding a four leaf clover and then he gets lucky.
> 
> I'm not sure this is the "getting lucky" you had in mind, but presumably that happens next! *g*
> 
> Also, just in case anybody who is interested doesn't already know, I'm [ralkana](http://ralkana.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
